Archive for January, 2013

As you are probably aware by now, I try to keep up on interesting weather phenomena, and this is no different. Something I already kinda new now has a study behind it as some proof. Bit cities not only affect their own weather, but weather patterns overall which affect weather downstream from the cities. Here’s the article…interesting read, for weather buffs…

A persistent snow plume which goes from Oswego through Fulton, Cleveland, Oneida Lake, to Rome…and then breaks off into pieces into Utica, and Frankfort and Ilion, will die out overnight tonight. Locations close to the Lake will pick up another 6″ or more, but Rome-Utica, another 1-2″, and further east, scant little more. As for the REST of the area, and thats most of it, just cloudy and very cold, with wind chills near -10 tonight and near zero Wednesday. The next chance for accumulating snow is Friday PM.

Later this month, it’ll be time for another full moon. Any guesses as to the name for this one? Last month, December, was easy to guess, the “Full Cold Moon”. This one isnt quite so easy, but it’s howl is worse than its bite. (Yes, thats a hint!)

I wouldn’t be surprised in the least for all but the big piles o’ snow to be gone by Friday, as temps warm up each day into the 40s, right on through next Wednesday. After that, the January COLD will return. But till then, its drip drip drip from the roof, as snowmelt continues. Some days, we may even reach a few record highs along the way…

This week and next are, climatologically, the coldest weeks of the year on a calendar basis. Not so this year for us. The January thaw is here, and will be here through next Monday, at least. Temps will be at or above 40F the next 7 days, well above the average of 29F. This means that storms (weak as they will be) will be rain-makers, not snow. Even with the thaw, it’s still 72 days till (calendar) Spring 🙂

There’s a significant meteor shower peeking the next 3 nights, with tonight’s sky being clearest. Unfortunately, this shower doesnt get much press because it also happens during the coldest nights of the year, early January, and tonight will be a bitter cold night! So, here are some details, if you’re brave enough for this cold!

I actually read about this in one of my weather “tech” magazines, about 6 months ago, but the fact that another article surfaces tells me this is real, getting worse, and may have a tremendous impact on our future farm crop and subsequently, food prices. For those of us who WERENT alive in the “Dustbowl Era”, circa mid 1930s, a severe drought compounded the Great (economic) Depression, by cutting way back on crops, to the point that it drove farmers out of farming in by far the biggest loss in agriculture in US history. The drought made much of the mid-section of the Nation (called the “Breadbasket”, for good reason) unusable for crops of almost any kind, and by the time Mother Nature changed her course, it was too long and too late for many farmers, who lost everything in the 6 year drought. A similar pattern is occurring right now over the same portion of the country. And I guess the questions are; for how long? How bad? Have we learned anything, to diminish it’s potential effects?